Omniscient God

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? You doing Alright? I trust so. You know, as I was praying about this broadcast, and about my own spiritual life, I want to be right with God before I ever open my mouth, the thought flashed across my mind that there are so many different kinds of people that listened. Some of you just waking up. I know the broadcast comes in very early at some places, that why I do the broadcast often times early in the morning, so that I’ll feel just like you do, as the day begins and some of you are midway through the day and some are just finishing up the day because the, the a program comes in late at night where you are.

Well wherever you are and however you are, I know that they’re all different kinds of circumstances. Somebody’s eyes are red with weeping because of sorrow or heartbreak. Somebody’s body is hurting with the pain that never seems to go away. Somebody’s worrying about a prodigal son or wayward daughter, someone sees his or her marriage breaking up in spite of the best you can do. And somebody’s worried about the job situation because it seems to be deteriorating, and all the rest of us are in the business of just getting through another day. Life is, is rough often times, but with Jesus beloved, it’s wonderful because every day can be an adventure with your blessed Lord. “When He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth ahead”. Our Lord Jesus, our good Shepherd, our Savior and our elder brother always goes ahead of us, and life, every minute of it, can be a blessing, exciting glorious adventure with your Lord.

Ed Mann, who for many years was president of Eastern Nazarene College, told me that, that I think it may have been his own, although he didn’t identify himself with it, but he said, “A man he knew”, that’s how he put it, “A man he knew used to pray when he woke up, ‘Good morning Lord. What are you up to today? Count me in on it’”. Well God does count us in on it for He hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”. And so, to all of my big family, the people whom I love and to whom I minister, day by day, let me say to you, pass the moments and the hours walking with your blessed Lord and it will be an adventure, not a drag. Good idea? I trust what we say to each other today may have something especially just for you. You be sure my prayers and my love, my concern. This is more than a radio show as they call it. I never call this program a show. “Do you listen to my show?”, somebody says. Well, it’s it’s not for show beloved, it’s for God and for you and for me and for eternity. That’s where it’s at.

We’ve come to the 11th chapter of Mark, the story of what is commonly called the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, “When they came nigh into Jerusalem and Bethphage and Bethany”, these were villages that were close together, “at the mount of olives, He sent forth two of His disciples and said unto them, ‘Go your way into the village over against you and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat’”. Now, this is an unbroken colt, you ought to remember that later a little later on, and He said, “Loose him and bring him. If any man say unto you, ‘Why do ye this?’, say, ‘Ye the Lord hath need of him’, and straightway he will send him hither”. They went their way and found a colt tied by the door, outside, in a place where two ways met, crossroads, and they loosed him, and certain of them that stood there said unto them, “What do ye loosing that colt?”, what are you doing you guys, and they said unto them, “Even as Jesus had commanded the Lord needs him, and they let them go, and they brought the colt to Jesus and cast the garments on Him and He sat upon him. Many spread their garments in the way and others cut down branches of the trees and strewed them in the way and they that went before and they that followed, cried, ‘Hosanna all blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest’”.
The triumphal entry, do you want to think about that with me? First of all, this is just another demonstration of the fact that the Lord Jesus knew what was going to happen before it happened. He looked into and through the lives of people. Remember the story of the rich, young ruler, it said, “Jesus beholding him”, Greek word emblepsas, means looking into and through it. He knew that he, what his problem was, knew all about him. The man who had been sitting under the fig tree and our Lord said to him, “Before Philip called you while you are still sitting under the fig tree, I knew you”. Remember that in John, John chapter 1? Nathaniel, he said, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile”, and Nathaniel said, “you know me:, Jesus said, “Before Philip called you when you’re sitting under the fig tree, I saw you”. Well, that was too much for Nathaniel, he said, “Thou art the son of God, the King of Israel”.

Another instance of the knowledge of Christ we’ll come to little later on in the book of Mark is what we call the last supper, where they, they said, “Where wilt Thou that we prepare the Passover”, it was Passover time and the Lord Jesus said, “You go into town, you’ll find a man carrying a pitcher of water, you follow him to the house and when he goes in you say to the good man of the house, ‘Where is the chamber for me and for my disciples?’, and he will show you an upper room furnished and ready”. Jesus knows, Jesus knows. Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth and song? Oh yes, He cares. I know my Savior cares. He knows. “He needed not”, John says, “that any should tell Him of men, for He knew all men”, and I think that verse, if I may refer to it, somebody said, “I like to hear when you turn the pages of your Bible”, well I turn them frequently because that’s all I know is the Word of God.

The second chapter, of John, he said, “He needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. He did not commit Himself under them because He knew all men”. That’s what I’m looking for. The word men is in italics. It’s not in the original Greek. He knew all. Omniscience. The psalmist was marveling at this end of the 139th Psalm. He said, “You know my sitting and uprising and, and you’re acquainted with all my thoughts, all my ways, there’s not a word of my tongue, but Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high. I cannot, I cannot attain unto it”. He said, You not only know everything, You’re everywhere, “Where Thou shall I go from my spirit, where Thou shall I flee from Thy presence”.

Well, have you thought recently about the fact that the Lord Jesus knows all about you? David Morkan, my dear friend of many years, a man full of the Spirit of God, and a great source of blessing to many us. I first met him when Youth for Christ was just beginning in the 1940s. He introduced me to the concept of memorizing large portions, large portions of the Word of God. He quoted the whole book of Hebrews one night, before we fell asleep. As a matter fact, I think I fell asleep before he finished and we were bunking together at a Council meeting up in Massachusetts somewhere, and he was my roommate, and from across the room and the other bed in the, in the room there, I heard this soft voice say, “God, who hath sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past and of the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His son”, and so on and so on. He was quoting the whole book of Hebrews. I fell asleep. I think along about Hebrews 11:6, “He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him”. I remember saying, “Yes Lord, I believe”, drifting off to sleep. David Morkan, good man. He said to me one day when he engaged in a time of prayer together, just the two of us, he said, “Bob, God will not discover anything new about you by the time you have finished your prayer. He will not discover anything new about you by the time you’re finished your prayer”. Why? Well, because He knows it already. How we try to, to, to, to use an old word, cultivate, remember, we used to really talk about cultivating people. That means, well the, the modern verb is stroke, that he needs to be stroked. We use that, those terms, meaning, you say the right thing to a person so that he will feel good toward you. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. It’s like a little child trying to pull the wool over mother or father’s eyes and, and convince them that something that’s not so, is so, and we tell God ridiculous things that sound nice.

Does that, does that strike a responsive chord in your own heart and mind? He knows it all already. He knows what will happen before it happens. Now that takes on awesome proportions when you think of what happens in our lives. An auto accident, for example, I can remember some years ago now, I think it was ‘83 something like that, anyway I was going, heading for a meeting in New York, and as I drove along, I just said goodbye to my dear wife, told her you take the other car dear. We had been at a, we had been it a, a wake for the one of our, one of our dear friends, and so we had driven two cars, because as she was going to go back home and I was been to proceed onto this meeting, so I said, “You take the other car and then you go home and I’ll hurry home as soon as I’m through”. And so, I’d said goodbye to her, now I had a drive of maybe 40, 50 miles at least, and I thought to myself, “Oh I’m going to pray. I need to seek God”. And so I was praying, I prayed for the space of I suppose maybe 15, 20 miles, just laying things out to God and my eyes were, were, were wet with tears and my heart was warm with blessing and all that.

Now, I finished my praying and came to a place where the road narrowed down to two lanes only. It was a bridge that went over the New York Thruway, two-lane bridge with a, with a big concrete fence on either side, and as I was crossing that bridge, here came this other car all of a sudden swinging over into my lane, and we came head-on into a, into a the crash. It all happened so quickly. I remember thinking in that flash– that man is going to hit me. Slammed on the brakes, didn’t do any good. There wasn’t any place to go, and so I remember thing afterwards, “Now my heart was right. I was seeking God I wanted to do my best and yet I had an accident”. Well now, God knows. Jesus knows ahead of time what’s going to happen, beloved. Yes He does, and He allows the things that sometimes I complain about, He allows them so that He may reveal himself to you and to me in a more precious and wonderful way. Count on the foreknowledge of God, when you commit yourself to Him and don’t try to kid God. Don’t mock Him. God is not mocked. Don’t say, “I was just kidding”. You tell God the truth and He will deal in love and mercy, with you.

Dear Father today help us count on Thy prior knowledge, and Thy grace, and Thy love, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!